Sunday Mercury Feature: A look at what former Walsall favourite Stuart Ryder is up to these days

FORMER England Under-21 Stuart Ryder has revealed how a redrawn raffle brought him back into football and kickstarted his new career.

FORMER England Under-21 Stuart Ryder has revealed how a redrawn raffle brought him back into football and kickstarted his new career.

The 37-year-old ex-Walsall defender is back in football having started not one but two businesses in his home town of Lichfield.

Just two years ago Ryder became a director of an after-school coaching business called Excel Arts and Sports.

And in October he opened the doors to the Central England Football Academy, which provides coaching and personal development to more than 60 aspiring players.

Ryder played 101 league games for the Saddlers and was part of the side that won promotion in 1995.

That year he also played in the Toulon Tournament alongside stars like David Beckham, Phil Neville and Dean Richards.

But after suffering a serious knee injury and falling out of football when released by Mansfield in 1999, he became disillusioned with the professional game.

And he bowed out altogether after his Hednesford Town non-league team won the FA Trophy at Villa Park in 2004.

He went on to spend five years not involved in football at all as he worked in office equipment and printing – until a night out with his father changed his life forever.

“I was 35 and was thinking about setting up a little football club maybe in the evenings – but nothing concrete,” Ryder recalled.

“My dad was at a social do and there was a raffle. One of the prizes was tickets to a Walsall game.

“A woman’s ticket came out but her attitude was: “I’m a Villa fan, what would I want to go down to Walsall for?’ And she chucked them back in.

“The next one that came out was my dad’s. He said ‘Stu, why don’t you have them, you haven’t been down there for ages’.

“I hadn’t been back to Banks’s Stadium since 1998 –11 years. I got a friend to come with me and he said ‘Why don’t you ring them up and see if we can get in the players’ bar after the game’. I wasn’t sure if they’d even remember me. I hadn’t spoken to anyone there for years.

“I rang up the club and someone said they’d get me some players’ tickets and asked if I minded if Roy Whalley called me.”

The then Saddlers secretary phoned and asked Ryder to go on to the pitch at half time. He tentatively agreed.

“I thought he was joking, I was only going there to watch the game. I got suited and booted and went out at half time and when I went out on the pitch I got really warm applause.

“It was really good, I thought I’d belonged to a different generation and that most people wouldn’t know who I was.”

Once he was back in football circles Ryder was asked by Walsall legend Chris Marsh to play for an old boys’ team. Marsh then offered him some coaching work – and a break into his new profession.

“I hadn’t had any recent experience of it so I did a refresher of my badges,” Ryder went on. “Then I started coaching with Chris Marsh, Richard Sneekes and Daryl Burgess at Total Football UK and that was my stepping stone – all out of a re-drawn raffle prize.”

By September 2009 Excel had been born, an initiative that not only provides after-school football coaching but has tutors in street dance, athletics and even Dodgeball.

And with a new business partner in February last year he began work on the academy and passed his UEFA B licence.

“At 35 something clicked in my head that I had had a good career, although it was short-lived,” he said.

“I was successful, had played at a reasonable standard and had a lot to offer in terms of experience and knowledge to young players who had a dream of becoming a professional footballer.

“We want to keep the children in football, if they get to 16 and go off to Villa that’s brilliant, or Walsall, that’s good as well, or some will go to non-league. It’s all about keeping them in football.

“I have had a good professional career and a good non-league career and I can see the benefits of that.”

The change of heart completes the circle for a player and coach who worked hard to become a footballer only to find out how badly the professional game can treat someone.

His upward trajectory was interrupted by a terrible knee injury that kept him out of the game for nearly two years.

“I showed a lot of character to play first team football after that,” he said.

“I don’t regret anything but the biggest feeling is that I didn’t fulfil my potential. That’s why I always work really hard now and that is why I want to help others do as well as they can.”

n More information about the Central England Football academy is available by emailing stuart.ryder@centralenglandfa.co.uk